Railways Introduces Discount Scheme In AC Chair Car And Executive Classes; Vande Bharat Passengers Will Also Benefit

With a view to optimize utilization of accommodation in trains, Ministry of Railways has decided to delegate powers to Zonal Railways to introduce discounted fare scheme in trains with AC sitting accommodation, subject to the following terms and conditions:

Applicability of the Discounted Fare scheme

This scheme shall be applicable in AC Chair Car and Executive classes of all trains having AC sitting accommodation including Anubhuti and Vistadome coaches.

The element of discount shall be upto maximum 25% on the basic fare. Other charges like reservation charge, Super fast surcharge, GST, etc., as applicable, shall be levied separately. The discount may be provided in any or all the classes on the basis of occupancy.

The train having classes with occupancy less than 50% (either end to end or in some specified legs/sections depending upon the sections where discount is to be provided) during the last 30 days shall be taken into consideration. 

The discount can be given for the first-leg of journey and/or last leg of journey and/or intermediate sections and/or end to end journey, provided occupancy is less than 50% in that leg/section/end to end, as the case may be.

The discount shall be implemented with immediate effect. However, no refund of fare shall be admissible for already booked passengers.

Further review shall be made regularly and based on the occupancy, the discount may be modified/extended/withdrawn.

If modification of discount/withdrawal of the scheme is decided, the same may also be implemented with immediate effect. However no difference of fare shall be charged or collected from already booked passengers.

In case of those trains where flexi fare scheme is applicable in a particular class and the occupancy is poor, flexi fare scheme may be withdrawn initially as a measure to increase the occupancy. In case this does not result in improved occupancy, only then discount scheme may be made applicable in those trains/classes.

Tatkal quota shall not be earmarked in such trains for the decided period in case the discount is provided on end to end basis. Further, if discount is provided for part journey of the train, then tatkal quota may not be provided for the part of the journey where discount is given.

This scheme shall not be applicable on special trains introduced as holiday/festival specials etc.

The provision of this scheme shall be applicable upto a period of 1 year.

Scheme will be applicable to Vande Bharat trains as well

Senior officials said the scheme will be applicable to Vande Bharat trains as well. Vande Bharat passengers will benefit as they are running with low occupancy. Currently, barring a handful of such low occupancy trains, most of the services of this semi-high speed train are running with full occupancy, according to official data.

End of June data showed that the Bhopal-Indore Vande Bharat service recorded just 29 per cent occupancy whereas the return journey of Indore-Bhopal Vande Bharat Express had only 21 per cent occupancy.

Similarly, the Nagpur-Bilaspur Vande Bharat Express which has an average occupancy of around 55 per cent and the Bhopal-Jabalpur Vande Bharat Express which has clocked 32 per cent occupancy while the return journey on Jabalpur-Bhopal Vande Bharat service has shown 36 per cent occupancy is also likely to see a fare reduction.